Idea File Fall 2024

Feature: Teamwork | 27

SETTING UP THE STRUCTURE The size of your book and staff may influence how you structure your teams. With a staff of around 25-30 people and around 320 pages, our magic number seems to be five teams made up of four or five staff members. When selecting my staff, I select writers, photographers, point people (content collectors and creators) and editors. Editors-in-chief and design editors serve as floaters, overseeing the entire deadline and using class time to assist and guide all the teams. Other editors, like copy and index editors, remain on teams, balancing their editorial duties with content creation. Ideally, each team has one or two writers to turn to when an assigned spread has a story, a designated photographer to help ensure the team has the photos they need and point people ready to run interviews, collect information and gather content for their spreads. That being said, we ingrained the philosophy into the culture of my staff that everyone must be willing and able to do anything and everything. Every team member should be ready to step in when needed, whether writing an extra story, crafting last-minute captions or capturing photos on short notice. Encouraging a learning mindset keeps the class educational and exposes students to new skills they might enjoy. Furthermore, if one of the goals of this team structure is to foster collaboration skills in students, they need to be trained that “I can’t do that” or “that’s not my job” are four-word sentences never to be uttered in your room.

N o matter the size of your book or staff, creating a yearbook is a significant undertaking. It can’t be done by one person alone, but I would argue it also shouldn’t be done by students working in isolation or even partners on assignments. There is strength in numbers, which is why I utilize a team system for my yearbook staff. WHY TEAMS? In my first year of advising, students worked in pairs on spreads. However, it often led to an uneven distribution of work, whether one person came in with an “I’ll just do it all” attitude or the other did not pull their weight. Since each pair of partners worked on more than one spread at a time, they naturally fell into splitting the work and completing it separately – not the collaborative environment I envisioned. I also noticed students brought diverse skills to the table. Some excelled in storytelling, while others had strengths in photography or design. Working alone or in pairs sometimes resulted in spreads lacking in certain areas. I knew I needed a system that made each staff member more accountable while leveraging their specific skills collaboratively. That’s when I decided to switch to teams. Not only did it address the issues I faced, but it also allowed my students to gain real-world experience by practicing collaboration in the classroom. I implemented this team system my second year advising yearbook and have never looked back. It streamlined our production process, and my students like it. Win-win.

Helping Hands. Referring to the spread progress tracking software, editors discuss each team’s progress and how they can best assist the teams throughout the deadline. Using our team system, editors are not assigned to a team. Instead, they float between teams to help everyone.